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So there is this fascinating word that has this incredible definition.
The word is History. If you're not familiar with it, Google it.
The definition is the past considered as a whole.
I want you to touch something, a folder, remote, just something, as long as it isn't liquid or the air. Now look at that object you are touching. Pick it up and feel it, every crevice and texture. That is an object. That object is whole. You're free to set down the object now.
Now think of the Mayans, the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians. At one point in time, each one of them was as solid as that object you just held. Look at your hands, your hands are the same as those Greeks 2500 years ago. Five fingers, three knuckles, able to flip the bird. Every part of you is nearly the same, even if it looks different. We are just like they were, just dressed a little different.
It’s kind of hard to imagine that long ago, right? Check out some pictures of how they lived and functioned. Every wall you see in images and descriptions were whole to them. It was structure and the basis of life.
Hold your palm out in front of you. Set the object from earlier in it. Look at it.
Now imagine thousands of years are that object. That time crammed into something whole. Every dress, every loin cloth, spoken word, lie. Billions and billions of memories captured. This is what it means to be considered a whole.
I don't know about you, but I find this interesting. To consider History as a whole--when it’s always been a whisper of vapor nobody can quite capture--is wonderful. To watch movies on the interpretation of the past, no matter how the plot goes, is incredible. I'm probably rambling. But think about this:
Take the movie Sherlock Holmes (I'm focusing on this because of my love and current infatuation with Robert Downey, Jr.), it’s timed around the turn of the century. If you've ever seen it you know of all the billowy wonderful dresses worn by women, the three-piece suits by men, and the dirty, rugged streets of London. ALL of that is History. But it’s only a small aspect of it. There is so much to learn.
I just read information on the Magna Carta. This document was written in the 13th century, giving liberty to each individual. This document was taken to the colonists to the "New America", and once they fought against their motherland of England, they used that document against them in order to gain independence. Once writing the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers turned to this centuries old document, the Magna Carta, to decide what morals and values should be used in this new and exciting world.
Isn't that fascinating?
My biggest thought is, we think we are so smart. We think we have beaten every person in our past with our innovations and technologies. We don't think we need History anymore.
Who do we think we are? We let computers think for us, cars do what we need to, music speak for us, letters contact people we haven't seen in weeks, months, or years.
The beauty of the spoken and hand-written word is lost among us. Our ancestors had it; they survived with horses and no air conditioning.
We have so much behind us that have lead us to this; why not give some credit to History?
Who do we think we are?